5 anti-corruption bills in 3 years? Here is how we did it...

We have a plan to end corruption.And we need your help to make it happen:

step 1

165 of the current deputies have pledged to support anti-corruption laws that will increase transparency and control of public money.

Before the elections, we asked the candidates to sign the Pledge of Support of Reconstruction of the State. The pledge includes 43 specific measures in 9 proposed laws that will reduce corruption and prevent misuse of public money. Being already effective in the majority of European countries, most of the laws are long overdue.

step 2

Before each vote, our experts inform the politicians about which law proposals or amendments are in line with their commitment in the pledge.

Following a successful pledge campaign, we initiated three bills from the pledge to be proposed in the new Chamber of Deputies. We also ensured that the remaining bills appeared in the new government legislative plan—with deadlines that are realistic, yet ambitious enough. We actively participate in the process of drafting the bills, sharing our positions, recommendations and comments. For each proposal and amendment, we prepare a detailed position—as we very well know that the devil is in the detail, and sometimes even one sentence can doom the entire bill to failure.

step 3

After each vote, we monitor and show how each MP has voted on the issue. Based on their previous commitment, we also assess whether or not the MPs have kept their word.

The final formulation of the laws before they are adopted is up to the politicians to decide. In our rating system, we base the assessment on key parts of the law—those parts and provisions that guarantee the desired anti-corruption effect of the law. When an MP does not vote for a particular law proposal that they have previously promised to support, we are happy to publish their explanation for such a decision.

step 4

As voters and citizens, we have a right to know how our MPs vote on the issues that matter to us. The more people are interested in how the MPs vote on anti-corruption issues, the more likely it is that the politicians will raise their hand for these laws.

During election campaigns, politicians don't seem to expect us to have the time or the energy to look for facts, or base our voting decision on their actual behaviour during the election period. Instead, they hope to impress us with new and new promises displayed on billboards. Using our rating system, we will provide the voters with a simple overview of which parties and MPs helped to fight corruption and increase transparency. We, as citizens, need to show the politicians that we care what they do and how they represent us, and they must understand that we are ready to use this information before the next elections.

9 laws that will help end corruption

Political parties and election campaigns in the Czech Republic are financed by state contributions and by donations from people and businesses. However, even some senior politicians themselves admit that the parties are often financed via the so-called “tunneling” of public procurement, EU subsidies, or the “buying” of political decisions. The true origin of the money is usually not possible to track down, due to the lack of rules for party financing. If the parties have to operate in a transparent way, it will make the illicit financing of their activities and election campaigns more difficult.

Declarations of assets will ensure that people who make decisions about the expenditure of public funds will not be able to get inexplicably rich while holding their positions. Czech politicians already have a duty to fill out a declaration of assets; however, it is a mere formality—handwritten declarations are often illegible and the law does not specify an explicit obligation to report shares in companies, which is a widespread form of bribery. In addition, politicians report only the assets they have acquired during the time of their service in office, so there is a complete lack of comparison with the original situation. This leaves the playing field open to a variety of tricks and it is practically impossible to verify whether the declaration is legitimate.

There is no reason for not making all contracts of the state and public institutions easily accessible to everyone—it is the best prevention of overpriced contracts, unnecessary purchases or unprofitable sales of assets. Although citizens can now request these contracts through the freedom of information law, the requests are often declined with reference to trade secrets, or on other pretexts. This simplest and most effective measure has already been implemented in Slovakia: each contract becomes effective only after it is published online in the so-called “registry of contracts”. Several town councils in the Czech Republic have also voluntarily adopted this practice.

The Conflict of Interest Act is supposed to prevent people who decide about public contracts from having a direct interest in a particular company being awarded the contract. However, this law is easy to circumvent in a situation where it is impossible to find out who is the final recipient of funds from public contracts or grants. Anonymous shares for “bearers” is one of the easiest methods of concealing the true recipient of the money: the owner of the share is always the person who physically has the deed in their hand; there is no evidence. Therefore, abolition—or registration—of anonymous shares is the first important step in order to trace the actual recipients of public funds. (Anonymous shares were abolished in the Parliament on May 7th 2013.)

Supervisory boards should be made up of people competent enough to control the company’s managers. Therefore, supervisory boards should include, for example, former successful managers, experts in accounting and procurement or in a field relevant to the company’s business. Politicians without relevant experience cannot themselves provide sufficient supervision, which is why in many countries they can only occupy some of the board’s positions, sometimes none at all. Therefore, it is necessary to establish rules for filling supervisory boards of state companies with independent experts and people with relevant qualification and experience.

The Czech Republic is the only country in the EU where public officials are not protected from political pressure by a Civil Service Act. The Act prevents new ministers from appointing “favorites” after taking office. These “favorites” then follow their instructions, for example, to divert public funds (e.g. Mr. Knetig in the Drobil case). The Act also significantly tightens the rules for civil servants: their decisions are subject to material liability, management positions are filled by clearly defined recruitment procedures, and rules for compensation are fixed.

In the past, the investigations of serious corruption cases have often ended in limbo after interventions of senior prosecutors, whose appointments and dismissals were directly influenced by politicians. Without strengthening the independence and impartiality of the prosecutors’ office, more significant success in the investigations of the most serious financial crimes and political corruption is impossible. This can be ensured by a number of rules and regulations for the appointment of the Attorney General and for the appointment of a director of a specialized unit for corruption.

The rules for the adoption of laws allow individual deputies to unobtrusively include paragraphs that have nothing to do with the pending legislation. Since this is typically done at the very last moment, other deputies often do not know exactly what they voted on. These added sections very often bring advantages for particular interest groups. For example, the Rough Diamonds Act contained a supplement that the Public Procurement Act, and a supplement to the Excise Tax Act, meant a relief for ČEZ worth almost 30 billion crowns, the sum the company would have otherwise had to pay for emission allowances. A series of several measures that have been successfully implemented in other countries can remove the practice of adding supplements.

By dealing with this backlog, a third of the budget will be put under independent control. Hundreds of billions of state funds in municipalities and state-owned enterprises will be subject to the Supreme Audit Office. This will make it possible to investigate and prevent future legal cases like Opencard, and to shed light on the economic activities of Czech Railways, Czech Airlines, and Prague Transport Company.